Vitali Vitaliev: Life as a Literary Device

University Centre Folkestone is delighted to welcome celebrated journalist and writer Vitali Vitaliev as the first speaker in their 2012 Public Lecture programme.

The first investigative journalist in the old Soviet Union, Vitali was forced to defect from the USSR in January 1990 – the result of his ground-breaking and courageous investigations into Soviet organised crime and neo-fascism. For those pioneering exposures, he won several Journalist of the year awards as well as the Nieman Fellowship in Journalism from Harvard University (USA) – the most prestigious title in international investigative journalism. Vitali was a staff columnist with The Guardian, The European, The Daily Telegraph, The Australian and won a number of prestigious journalism awards. He wrote and presented TV and radio documentaries for BBC 1 TV, BBC Radio 4, Channel 4, ABC and ITV and is a regular and popular tongue-in-cheek media commentator on current political and social issues.

Having lived and worked in England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia and the USA, Vitali became widely known for regular appearances on TV and radio, including Saturday Night Clive, After Dark, Have I Got News For You, Desert Island Discs, QI, etc. For his intelligent and amusing Saturday Night Clive live appearances via satellite from Moscow, and then from Melbourne, he was dubbed by British media “the first smiling Russian on British TV” – a label that sticks until now, alongside the likes of “Russian Clive James” and “Russian Bill Bryson”. He has published eleven books, written in English and translated into a number of languages, including German, French, Italian, Japanese and (rather ironically) Russian.

“Vitali Vitaliev is a star in the making” -Time magazine

“Vitaliev has an irrepressible sense of humour” –The Guardian

“With the charm of Michael Palin and the wit of Clive Anderson, this man is adorable” -Time Out